This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!
Let's kick this series off with a fun one!
This story was collected from Ács, which is a town of about 7,000 people in Komárom-Esztergom county, northwestern Hungary, by the River Danube. In the olden days water mills lined the river.
The story goes that one day the millers in Lovad (a field by the river) caught a goose on the Danube and decided to cook it. They cut it up and put it in a pot to make some nice savory gulyás (take note, gulyás is originally a soup, not stew). However, the more they cooked it, the tougher the meat got. After waiting several hours for the meal, one of the millers checked the pot again - and was shocked to discover it had pieces of a fur coat in it instead of meat.
Frustrated by the whole thing, the millers dumped the soup from the pot into the Danube. But as soon as they did, the meat turned back into a goose, and it swam cheerfully down the waves of the river. The millers did not try to capture it again. They merely waved and yelled:
"Go on, damn you! Trick the millers in Aranyos down the river too!"
(Collected from Péntek József, a miller from Ács, in the 1920s. Source here)
"Aranyos" in this story refers to Csallóközaranyos (Zlatná na Ostrove) on the Slovakian side of the river.
Hello everyone! It's that time of the year again: people doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge are revealing their themes. This is my 15th year participating! Except for my first year, I have always had a theme, and it is always folklore and mythology related.
This year, I am bringing another folklore-themed series for A to Z. My chosen theme (after much deliberation) is:
SMALL TOWN LEGENDS FROM HUNGARY
I have combed through a whole lot of historical legends and small town traditions, and picked the most entertaining, strange, memorable ones I could find to share with you. You will learn some hard-to-pronounce Hungarian village names, explore local folklore, and have something to remember about these places should you ever visit. Here is your inspiration to venture outside of Budapest!
There will be ferocious squirrels, village lads mistaking a hoopoe for Jesus Christ, an exploding dragon, a flying monk, and other wild adventures.
See you in April!
(This is a map of small villages [under 1000 inhabitants], tiny villages [under 500], and dwarf villages [under 200] in Hungary, from here.)
I had the honor to participate in the Taking the Tradition On series online. I chose "Bands of Heroes" as my topic, since I have been very passionate about these legend cycles for a long time. You can watch the talk on YouTube. I promised Amy and the audience that I would compile a reading list of all the epics and sources I mentioned. So, here it is!
Nart Sagas
John Colarusso - Tamirlan Salbiev (ed.): Tales of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians (Princeton University Press, 2016)
John Colarusso (ed.): Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs (Princeton University Press, 2016)
Dietrich Cycle
Ian Cumpstey: The Saga of Didrik of Bern (Skadi Press, 2017)
Edward R. Haymes: The Saga of Thidrek (Garland Publishing, 1988)
Wilhelm Wagner: Great Norse, Celtic and Teutonic Legends (2004)
Katherine M. Buck: The Wayland-Dietrich Saga (1924)
Lewis Spence: Hero Tales & Legends of the Rhine (1915)
Donald Mackenzie: Teutonic Myth and Legend (1934)
Wilhelm Wagner: Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages (1884)
Henry Weber: Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (1814)
Comtesse von Günther: Tales and Legends of the Tyrol (1874)
F.E. Sandbach: The Heroic Saga-Cycle of Dietrich of Bern (1906)
Charlemagne Cycle
Thomas Bulfinch: Legends of Charlemagne (1866)
Luigi Pulci: Morgante: The Epic Adventures of Orlando and His Giant Friend Morgante (Indiana University Press, 1998)
Ludovico Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (Oxford, 1999)
Glyn Burgess: The Song of Roland (Penguin, 2015)
Robert Linker: The Misfortunes of Ogier the Dane (John F. Blair, 1964)
Water Margin
Shi Nai'an: The Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh (Tuttle, 2010)
S. L. Huang: The Water Outlaws (Tor Books, 2023)
Romance of Antar
Terrick Hamilton: Antar, a Bedouin Romance (1819)
Princess Fatima
Melanie Magidow: The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman (Penguin, 2021)
Attila the Hun
Gárdonyi Géza: Slave of the Huns (Corvina, 2000)
Jómsviking Saga
Lee M. Hollander: The Saga of the Jómsvíkings (University of Texas Press, 1989)
Gulaim and her warrior maidens
David Andresen: Gulaim, Warrior Maiden of Sarkop (Kindle, 2012)
(Of course, there are other hero tale cycles, like King Arthur, the Argonauts, Robin Hood, or the Fianna, but those have a whole lot of sources easily available so I'm skipping them for now)
This is my 7th year tracking the earworms I wake up with every morning. This year, I added a new factor to the experiment: I switched to Spotify on January 1st. So I did not only track my own internal radio, but I can also now compare it with Wrapped, and see whether there is correlation between the music I listen to the most, and the music that gets stuck most often. (I know Spotify is problematic, this was an experiment).
Let's see the previous years:
2018: I woke up with an earworm 306 mornings, featuring 150 different songs (post here)
This year I woke up on 299 mornings with music stuck in my ear. Honestly, it was probably more than that, but in many occasions the morning chaos wiped my memory before I got to record them (yay, life with a small child). There were 148 different songs represented in the sample.
Let's see the Earworm Top List first:
Unsweetened Lemonade (11 mornings)
According to Spotify, I listened to this song 30 times this year. With that, it was among the 10 most listened to songs on my Wrapped. So, there seems to be correlation.
The Cult of Dionysus (8 mornings)
Definitely correlation: this was my top most listened to song on Spotify this year (61 listens). This is my jam. It is interesting, though, that it didn't stick as often as I thought it would.
Pink Pony Club (8 mornings)
28 listens on Spotify, so it technically wasn't in the top 10. But it did stick - both the original version and the metal cover.
Popular (7 mornings)
It was way down on the list with 19 listens, but I do adore this song, I think Ariana Grande does amazing with it.
Hear My Hope (7 mornings)
To be fair, this would probably go a lot higher on the list, except I just watched Hazbin Hotel Season 2 at the end of November, so statistically, it didn't have a chance. It still made the top list in 1 month. Also, I freaking LOVE this song.
On total, Hazbin Hotel Season 2 accounted for 21 mornings in one month. Quite impressive.
I also had You're Welcome and How far I'll go from Moana on 7 mornings each, and Shiny on 5, but at this point I have just resolved to have them stuck in my head for the rest of my life. Same with We don't talk about Bruno (6 mornings).
And yes, I watched and listened to Kpop Demon Hunters, but I didn't love it. The only song that made it high up on the list was Takedown (5 mornings).
And now, for the Spotify Top Songs:
1. Cult of Dionysus by The Orion Experience
2. Wellerman by Santiano
3. W.I.T.C.H. by Devon Cole
4. Brighter Days Come by Patty Gurdy
5. Sucker from the Arcane soundtrack
6. Spin the Wheel from the Arcane soundtrack
7. Future Heroine by Ecca Vandal
Most of these didn't even make it to the earworm list, or only showed up once. So, the correlation is not always there, it turns out.
And now, for the 1-morning-only WTF contender of the year:
As usual, it has been a very busy month. I would not have gotten through it had I not scheduled my posts in advance. And I am so glad I did. Women's Epics A to Z has been a whole year in the making, and it was such a wonderful adventure to explore these stories. I am happy that I finally got to share them!
26 epics with women as protagonists. Heroes. Healers. Explorers. Fighters. Lovers. Complex characters with complex lives and amazing adventures.
I know the posts were long. Much longer than the should be for a blogging challenge. But I wanted my blog to be a permanent resource for people interested in these - often hard to find and hard to read - epics. So I trusted my audience. And a lot of you stopped by and commented, which made me very happy! I will definitely do the road trip this year, because I did not get to visit nearly as much as I wanted to.
I would like to highlight some blogs that participated this year and whose themes I especially enjoyed:
Black and White by Anne E. G. Nydam - Over the course of April I bought and read the book she wrote, and I absolutely adored it! It is a collection of short stories and poetry that center on hope. It was cozy, and perfect for my soul. If you want some snippets, you can read her A to Z posts!
A year with trees - A blog and a podcast about trees. Obviously, the A to Z theme was also trees, all kinds of trees I have never heard about. It was a lovely series to follow.
Nonfiction picture books by Christina Dankert - This one was an amazing A to Z full of picture book recommendations on nonfiction topics - biographies and other interesting things. My TBR grew by a mile, and as a parent, I especially appreciated it.
A logophile's ludic musings by Deborah Weber - I always like Deborah's A to Z themes; she was an amazing way with words, and associations that always teach me something new and beautiful.
Story Crossroads - A blog about storytelling, and a returning A to Z participant with another amazing folklore and mythology theme. This time, it was all stories about cheating (or trying to cheat) death. Amazing resource.
Madly-in-Verse - Nilanjana's blog is always a delight. This year, the A to Z theme was Indian textiles, embroidery and weaving. It was a fascinating dive into a vast and colorful topic I knew little about.
There were several other blogs that I came across but didn't have time to consistently follow, or visit back. But hey, that's what the Road Trip is for! See you all there!
This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.
The Epic of Kachwenyanja Haya, Tanzania
Alright so this letter needed some sleight-of-hand. But luckily, the heroine of this epic, whine generally known as Nyakandalo, also exists in variants under the name (Nfundo) z'Ebyanzi. I'll take it.
This story is the most popular Haya epic. According to the introduction by Mugyabuso M. Mulokozi, no real Haya bard is worth anything without having it in their repertoire; it was even aired on Radio Tanzania. The version I read was collected from a bard named Jason Rwezaura, who was surprisingly young at the time (25 years old). He had other poems and epics in his repertoire, and he even composed new ones (including one on a bus accident, and one on the AIDS epidemic). He died in the epidemic in 1991.
The epic is known in various versions; Mulokozi compares 6 of them. He also provides a detailed introduction and notes for the text, including discussions of the story's geographical and historical context. Apparently, the story of the epic takes place somewhere between 1450 and 1600 CE. Mulokozi theorizes that the epic itself can't be much younger, so it is about 500 years old. In the translation I read, it is close to 1100 lines.
The introduction repeatedly calls Kilenzi the hero, but the entire story revolves around Nyakandalo, so I decided it counts as a woman's epic.
I read the epic in this book. You can also read it here, and learn more about it from here.
What is it about?
TL;DR: Kilenzi has a dream about a woman, so he sets out and marries her. Soon after, he is killed in battle. His new wife, Nyakandalo sets out to avenge his death.
CW: lot of violence
The epic opens in first person (addressing the audience as Long-Liver). Kilenzi talks about having a nightmare that wakes him - a nightmare of war and marriage. His wife tries to comfort him, but he decides to set out and have his dream interpreted. When he sets out on the journey, the narration switches to third person, but it is still told as "I saw him..."
Eventually Kilenzi meets the women he has seen in his dream, Nyakandalo among them. They talk and immediately like each other, so Kilenzi proposes on the spot (initially he wants to marry both women, but they say it's a bad idea). Five days after marrying, the war drums sound. A messenger comes from King Ruhinda to summon Kilenzi, but he is off drinking banana beer, and Nyakandalo is harvesting enumbu potatoes outside of town. The messenger goes to her. Nyakandalo immediately hurries to prepare food for her departing husband. However, her work is full of bad omens: the plantains she cuts crash-land, she digs for yams but can't find them, her digging runs into rocks, the grinding stone slips out of her hands, the cooking pot breaks. Even worse, when she tries to hand his weapons to Kilenzi, all turn out to be broken: eaten by insects, bored throught or snapped. Nyakandalo, reading the signs, tries to persuade her husband not to go, but he swears at her and insists on going. He tries to have sex with her but fails. He leaves, telling Nyakandalo that if she sees a mushala leaf on the ground while she works, she'll know he's dead.
Kilenzi fights valiantly, but when he stops to chew some coffee beans, a small man named Lulyandibwa shoots him with an arrow and kills him. Warriors returning home tell Nyakandalo what happened. She decides to take revenge by killing all of Lulyandibwa's tribe. She first goes to her aunt and asks her to fringe her hair (in a bridal style), dress her, and smear her with butter. On her way to the enemy she vows at her husband's grave that she'll take revenge, and kill at least nine people if she has to fight.
A lot of men gather to court Nyakandalo and sing her praises, but she rejects all of them. Finally she meets Lulyandibwa (who is dirty and smelly) and he boasts about killing Kilenzi. She pretends to be enchanted by him. They marry. On the fifth day after, she tells her husband to make banana beer and invite his people to drink. When the beer is being made she picks poison herbs and mixes them in in secret. Once eveyone is drunk and passed out, she kills (and castrates) her new husband first, and then everyone else. The next morning her in-laws come; her father-in-law tries to seduce her, and she kills him too. All in all she kills 2070 people.
On her way home Nyakandalo grieves for her husband, but also accuses him of ruining her life. She calls out the king loudly, saying his people are useless and his war was senseless. The last line of the epic is "I loved my husband!"
The highlights
I liked the small details in the text. At the beginning, when Kilenzi has a nightmare, it is described as "I added a snore and she patted me, I saw that I had fallen off the bed..." It is noted that he tries to distract himself by sleeping with his wife, but because of his worries, he fails to do so. At one point Kilenzi's battle prowess was described as "he who stems a swarm of grasshoppers", which is not very fearsome at first glance, but if you think about it, would be quite a feat. Nyakandalo is initially described as an ishasha fig (a sumptous red fig) and a waterlily. Some other lines were quite shocking at first: "O Maiden, let me kill and eat you, and wear your eyes" (which means, let me make you mine and hold your gaze, but I don't recommend it as a pickup line). At one point Kilenzi is described as "his calves are bettter than those of a pigeon."
There is a moment in the text where someone called in "well done" to the bard from the audience, and he answers "thank you, Bestower; it is your energy, sir", which I thought was cool.
WITH THIS, THE SERIES IS DONE.
Thank you for sticking around! I hope you enjoyed learning about women's epics. I could have included a lot more of them, but alas, only 26 letters. Maybe next time.
This year my theme for the A to Z Blogging Challenge is Women's Epics. My goal was to read 26 traditional epics from around the world that have women as their heroes. Because epics like this do exist, and they are fascinating! Read the intoduction post here.
Ashima Sani (Yi)
The Sani are a branch of the Yi people who live in Yunnan province in China. Ashima's story, sung in a long narrative poem and handed down through the oral tradition, is one of their most popular folk epics. Variations of the poem were collected and compiled in 1953 by researchers from Beijing, and published as a composite "most complete" version. It was then translated into English and published in this volume (translated into rhyming verses). The book comes with a short introduction that has an undercurrent of centralized propaganda, so I an not entirely sure whether the "composite version" of the story has been altered or not.
What is it about?
TL;DR: Ashima, a beautiful girl is kidnapped by an evil man as a bride for his son. She resists the marriage, and her brother shows up to rescue her. He succeeds through a series of challenges, but on the way home he loses Ashima anyway.
The story begins with a couple who live a peaceful life with their two children: a brave and strong boy Ahei, and a beautiful, hard-working daughter Ashima. When Ashima grows up, she becomes famous far and wide as the perfect girl. An evil rich man named Rebubala decides to take her as a wife for his son. However, when his messenger comes to ask for the girl, her family squarely refuses - they want Ashima to marry a man she loves. Ashima rejects the rich man's suit. Rebubala, angered, sends people to kidnap her. The girl is snatched away, and the whole community grieves for her. Ahei, who is away pasturing his flocks, has a nightmare and returns home. When he finds out Ashima is gone, he immediately sets out to rescue her.
Ashima is taken to Rebubala's stronghold to wed his son Azhi. But she stands up to her kidnappers, refuses to marry the man, and calls them on their lies and their threats. She is beaten and thrown into a dungeon to break her will. When Ahei arrives, Azhi challenges him to a duel of sung riddles, but Ahei easily outsings him, and answers all the riddles. When he is let inside, Rebubala challenges him to see who can cut down more trees. Ahei easily fulfills the tasks: he chops down more trees than Azhi - and then he has to put them back, and does that faster too. Then he has to sow rice, and then pick it all up, but once again he is better at it than Azhi. Still, he loses three grains. He eventually manages to find them with the help of an old man (birds took them).
The challenges having failed, Rebubala and Azhi decide that they will sic their tigers on Ahei at night. While he sleeps, they send three feroicious tigers up the tower stairs to his room. However, Ashima plays warning music on her flute, and Ahei stands ready. He kills the three tigers, and skins the biggest one, then puts the skin back. In the morning, the villains are shocked to see the dead tigers, but they soon challenge Ahei to skin the largest. Ahei yanks the skin off, winning the challenge.
However, Rebubala still refuses to give up the girl. He locks Ahei out of the fortress. Ahei responds by shooting arrows over the wall with such force that no one can pull them out of where they struck. In the end, Ashima is summoned and she pulls them out with ease; finally, she is given back to her brother.
However, as the siblings ride away, Rebubala summons a storm. As they are crossing a surging river, the waves sweep Ashima away. She reappears to her brother later, standing on a rock in the ravine, and tells him that she had transformed into a spirit: she became the echo, and always answers when her people call.
The highlights
While in this epic Ashima doesn't rescue herself, she is still presented as a very stong and brave character. She rejects the suit, doesn't bow to threats, sees through lies, and states loud and clear that she will only marry a man she loves.
I adored the opening of the story that described how much the parents loved Ashima and how they celebrated her birth. It was similarly touching to read the part where they talked about their love for her to the wily messenger who brought the proposal from Rebubala. They wanted her to be happy, and they described unhappy marriages in great detail, fearing for their daughter's future.
I also liked that Rebubala's wickedness was described by saying that bees didn't visit his flowers, and ants didn't go inside his house.
A GIRL DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE TO RESCUE HERSELF TO BE A STRONG CHARACTER.
Do you know of other heroines who are strong in different ways?
I hereby acknowledge that this is not an official Department of State website, and the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State.
Posts
